Fair Food

This month, the book club gets ambitious with Oran Hesterman's Fair Food: Growing a Healthy, Sustainable Food System for All. I say this because if you know anything about Hesterman and his Fair Food movement, it is no small deal. He is out to change the whole system. Well, perhaps not even change, but start over and build something new. When something is as dysfunctional as the American food system, indeed, it makes very little sense to try and fix it from within. There are times when something should just be thrown on the scrap heap...according to Hesterman, this is the time for action, our food system isn't going to fix itself.

Have you noticed a theme at Simple, Good and Tasty (SGT) this week? Nope, it’s not about the salmonella outbreak in factory-raised eggs; Michael Pollan, Bill Marler and John Robbins are doing a good job covering that subject for us. And, no, it’s not about the growing controversy about whether or not to sell flavored milk in school cafeterias; thank you, Renegade Lunch Lady Ann Cooper, for taking care of that one.

It’s that time of year again, when Minnesotans of every stripe gather at the Great Get-Together for 12 days of farm exhibits and blue-ribbon competitions, midway rides and carnival games, and lots (and lots) of food. When it comes to fairground fare, it’s easy enough to find all-American classics from corn dogs to corn-on-the-cob. But there are also favorite foods that reflect Minnesota’s immigrant history, such as Norwegian lefse, German bratwurst and Italian zeppoles. In recent years, however, the state has also become home to people from Latin America, Asia and Africa, and slowly but surely, State Fair food is beginning to reflect the change.